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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25632196">No Premonition of Their Effect On You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lion_owl/pseuds/Lion_owl'>Lion_owl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Merlin (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Allusions to Violence, Between Seasons/Series, Canon Compliant, F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Missing Scene, Morgause POV, Seduction, Sexual Content, between series 2 &amp; 3, but we already knew that, on both sides tbh, these aren't nice people</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:27:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,990</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25632196</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lion_owl/pseuds/Lion_owl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Morgause and Cenred's first meeting...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cenred/Morgause (Merlin)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Merlin Rarepair Hub</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>No Premonition of Their Effect On You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Partially inspired by <i>Sacrapos (At First Glance)</i> by Eluveitie, which is the source of both the title, and the lyrics featured later in the fic.</p><p>Wow, this is quite different to anything i'd normally write...</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>
    <em>Morgause:</em>
  </strong>
  <em> The mandrake's poison does its work well</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Morgana:</em>
  </strong>
  <em> Soon all of Camelot will believe that their king is going mad</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Morgause:</em>
  </strong>
  <em> And a kingdom without a king is ripe for the picking</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Morgana:</em>
  </strong>
  <em> When do you go to Cenred?</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Morgause:</em>
  </strong>
  <em> Tomorrow</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Morgana:</em>
  </strong>
  <em> And he will do as we wish?</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Morgause:</em>
  </strong>
  <em> Cenred wishes only to please me</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Morgana:</em>
  </strong>
  <em> Then your time with him has been well spent</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>≈</strong>
</p><p>Morgause folds her arms, sits back and admires her work; inked onto several sheets of parchment now laid out with finality across the desk in her private chambers.</p><p>Her plan is infallible.</p><p>Camelot’s soldiers are falling by the dozen in their futile quest to find the missing Lady Morgana, who currently sleeps peacefully in the room next door; who, in a few more months, will be entirely willing to help bring down her own Kingdom. Morgause has no doubt.</p><p>Now, all that’s left is to convince Cenred to amass her an army of her own.</p><p>Smiling, she stands and goes down to the small throne room to see if her orders have been fulfilled.</p><p>Three of her men are there, along with two peasants who are both wearing low-quality, worn-out clothes, and whose wrists are shackled. Both of whom are kneeling on the ground. She makes a show of inspecting them.</p><p>“Excellent, these tatters will do nicely.” She says after a moment, looking up at her men. “Beat them, and then bring me their clothes.”</p><p>She turns and stalks back to her chambers. Going to her potions cabinet, she takes out one she mixed earlier, and drinks the whole bottle: once it takes effect, she will appear to anyone who looks, as though she is the one who has been beaten up.</p><p>There is a knock on the door, and she opens it to find a servant standing there, holding a pile of rags. She steps back from the door, indicating for the servant to enter.</p><p>“Help me undress,” she says. The servant complies, helping her out of her dark red dress, which she hangs up carefully in the wardrobe, and into the clothes that have been taken from the peasants, which are now ripped and sporting patches of drying blood.</p><p>She turns to look in the mirror, where now, she sees the cuts and bruises that apparently litter her grime-covered skin, the apparent greasy tangle of her hair, the bags under her eyes as though she rarely sleeps. Add that to her clothes. She looks a right mess. She thinks perhaps when she approaches Cenred’s position, she shall adopt a limp.</p><p>He will pity her. He won’t be able to resist helping her.</p><p>It could be his downfall.</p><p>She and two of her men ride to Essetir, and set up camp on the border. She leaves her horse with them and sets off on foot in the direction of Cenred’s citadel.</p><p>
  <strong>≈</strong>
</p><p>“I cannot thank you enough, o Great King,” she says, in a voice as small as she can possibly muster, as she kneels before him where he sits on his throne. She had practised it on the journey, but she would admit that feigning a weak and humble persona hardly comes naturally to her. But it seems he is buying it.</p><p>“Perhaps you could thank me with your company,” Cenred suggests. “Dine with me this eve?”</p><p>“Sire! You would afford me such an honour?”</p><p>“I insist,” he says. “It would be my pleasure.”</p><p>“Then I shall dine with you.”</p><p>Cenred turns to one of the servants. “Show the lady to a chamber, would you? Prepare her a bath, and fetch her some more appropriate attire. And do it quickly.”</p><p>“Yes sire,” the servant says, curtseys, and indicates for Morgause to follow; stopping to exchange a brief word with another servant in the corridor along the way.</p><p>The chambers she is taken to are bigger than her own, and the furniture is significantly more ornate. The servant pulls a large bathtub into the centre of the room. The other servant from the corridor and several others arrive, carrying buckets of water, which they pour into the tub. One of them uses a spell to heat the water.</p><p>Morgause sheds the tatters, leaving them in a heap on the floor, and steps into the tub. She had a bath only this morning, but her story is that she’s been on the run for weeks, so she makes a big show of the relief she feels at being submerged in the warm water after so long, even throwing in a moan.</p><p>Two towels are placed on the chest at the end of the bed, and one of the servants hands her a bar of soap, and the group hurriedly exit the room.</p><p>She does lather the soap and give her body a quick scrub, then casts a spell to turn the water a murky grey, from the dust of weeks she had, in reality, spent in comfort; and climbs out of the tub, wrapping one towel around her hair, and the other around her body.</p><p>She lies down on the bed, atop the sheets, and smiles to herself: he has fallen for her ploy. Before the night is out, he’ll be hers.</p><p>Some time later, one of the servant returns, holding dainty pair of shoes, and a wooden hanger, flowing from which is a dress – made out of a shiny silver-coloured material, decorated with blue lace – it’s lovely. Not as nice as her own red one, but it’ll do for now; he’ll be in for a treat, next time she visits.</p><p>The servant hangs the dress up on the wardrobe door, and produces a hairbrush. Morgause gets up, removing the towel from her head and leaving it on the bed (it doesn’t matter if the sheets become damp, since she has little intention of returning here later) and goes to sit in front of the mirror. The servant comes to begin brushing her hair, which has almost dried, but Morgause bats her away and holds out her hand. The servant obediently gives the brush to her and goes about tidying away the bath while Morgause brushes out the knots.</p><p>Once both tasks are completed, the servant helps her into the dress.</p><p>“Thank you,” she says, almost as an afterthought, once she is ready.</p><p>“The King has sent word that he is ready to receive you,” the servant tells her. “We should hurry, or no doubt his anticipation will get the better of his temper.”</p><p>“Lead the way.”</p><p>
  <strong>≈</strong>
</p><p>
  <em>In a contented manner she sits by the bonfire sanctimoniously thanking you for the hospitality.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Her treacherous intentions as cold as the occasional draughts of wind piercing your back.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You mistake the twinkle in her eyes for pure warm-heartedness, and have no premonition of their effect on you.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A bleak smile flickering on her lips, she beholds you with algid satisfaction, as in her sinister mind, you become her prey, her treasure, the sacrifice on the altar of her own lust.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Cursed and sacred, this arcane exercise, disembodied fiend waving through her gaze.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Being a virtuoso of deceit and perfidiousness, she leaves you with no chance of escape from what is happening in your mind.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She hasn't come to crush your bones, nor tear your flesh.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She has come to steal your sanity with just one glance.</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>≈</strong>
</p><p>She sits opposite him. They are at either end of a long dining table. A fire burns in the hearth, yet there is a window open. It is summer, but it is late, and the night is windy.</p><p>“I must thank you once again,” she says, not breaking eye contact with him as she tears a piece of bread with her fingers. “For allowing me to seek refuge here, in your fine castle.”</p><p>“As I have said, the pleasure is all mine.”</p><p>“Nevertheless, I am grateful. When your men first found me in the fields outside town, I thought they were going to kill me before you intervened.”</p><p>“Now, I would never have allowed that,” he says.</p><p>“I should never have doubted you,” she says. A draught blows in through the window behind him, skirting across his back, skirting across her face. It is annoying, but they are playing a game; to get up and close the window, or to ask a servant to do so, would be to give ground.</p><p>So instead, they ignore the breeze and engage in idle conversation while they eat.</p><p>He watches her face, privately musing on how she is beautiful, even despite the bruises which corroborate her story: she was captured by bandits two months ago and has been on the run after she escaped three weeks ago.</p><p>She laughs at a remark he makes. The laughter reaches her eyes, twinkling with warmth. He could live in that warmth. He has no idea how carefully calculated it is.</p><p>The discussion turns to Camelot. To Pendragon and his ruthless, ongoing purge of magic across the land. She hates them, she tells him. She admits there have been sorcerers in her family, but they are gone now. She doesn’t tell him she and her sister are the last. He agrees, he has no love for his Pendragon neighbours, either.</p><p>She smiles sadly. She watches him. She waits. He will be hers.</p><p>If she imbues her gaze and her voice with a little bit of enchantment, who is to notice?</p><p>She has planned this.</p><p>He is drawn in.</p><p>As the servants clear away their plates, he comes to a startling realisation: he would do anything for her.</p><p>Almost anything.</p><p>He invites her to his chambers. She accepts without hesitation.</p><p>
  <strong>≈</strong>
</p><p>She lets him lead, to begin with. When the door closes, she allows him to press her against it. He kisses her neck, and she allows that, too, tilting her head. His hands caress her waist, and hers caress his shoulders. He kisses her lips, and she kisses back.</p><p>She ever-so-slightly pushes forward, nudging him backward; they step in tandem into the centre of the room. Her hands on his shoulders slip under his jacket. She nudges at it, and he shrugs it off, exactly as she wanted him to. She turns her back to him so that he can untie her dress.</p><p>Once they are both divested of all clothing, she allows him to lie her down beneath him; her fingers trailing slowly down his back.</p><p>She lets him lead, to begin with. When they start to move together more quickly, more desperately, however… she begins to assert control.</p><p>Wrapping an ankle around his leg, she twists him onto his back, straddles him, holding his wrists and pinning him down. When he reaches his peak, she lets go of one of his wrists, bringing her hand down to bring herself the rest of the way to her own.</p><p>She slumps on top of him. They are both jelly.</p><p>He whimpers, uncharacteristic for a warrior and king. He is hers.</p><p>Before he can move, she reaches down for the covers and pulls them up over them both. They <em>should</em> clean up, she knows this; but she also knows that if she goes to fetch a cloth, she could lose her advantage.</p><p>“Sleep,” she tells him.</p><p>“Then stay,” he says.</p><p> <strong>≈</strong></p><p>The following morning, the potion she took to appear injured has worn off, and her skin is completely unblemished.</p><p>“You lied to me,” he says, when she wakes.</p><p>“Yes,” she admits, boldly, just <em>daring</em> him to kick her out of bed.</p><p>“Who are you then, Morgause?”</p><p>“Someone who needs your help.”</p><p>“Really?” he raises an eyebrow.</p><p>“I need an Army. And for you to let me keep that dress, because I’m not riding home in what I arrived in. If you provide, a large share of Camelot’s riches are yours.”</p><p>“A tempting offer,” he says, running a finger along her cheek, across her ear, down her neck and dancing across her shoulder. “Anything else?”</p><p>She smirks. “We shall see.”</p><p> </p>
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